WAR IN THE. AIR
and H.M.S. Enterprise arrived on the
scene and promptly attacked. The
German Navy is believed to have not
much more than 20 destroyers left,
so this blockade-runner was evidently
inli of something which the Germans
very much wanted to get safely de
livered, as they risked such a large
proportion of their surviving surface
fleet in the effort to protect her. Five
of the destroyers were of the new
Narvik class, each of which has gun-
power not much inferior to that of
H.M.S. Enterprise, a 25-year-old ship
of 7,580 tons. But the Germans
would not fight. The flotilla split up
and dispersed in groups of three or
four ships. Meanwhile, all aircraft
which could get there joined in the
fight. There was some attempted
interference by enemy aircraft, but it
does not seem to have amounted to
much. Beaufighters and Mosquitoes
gave air cover to the British cruisers,
and one Heinkel 177 was shot into
the sea by a Mosquito. One Halifax
and one Beaufighter were lost,
apparently having been shot down by
flak from either the blockade-runner
or the destroyers. Three of the latter
were certainly sunk by the guns of
the two cruisers, and others were
known to have been damaged. The
engagement resulted in a heavy loss
to German surface sea power, and it
was a grand example of combined
work by the Navy and Coastal Com
mand. Neither by itself could have
brought off such a satisfactory result,
but by working closely together they
scored a victory which was equally
creditable to both.
More Berlin Devastation
TpHE Battle of Berlin goes stormily
-*- on through ihjsjong winter nights,
and the small hours of Christmas Eve
saw one brief but heavymttack. There
have been mtore since )then. Often
FL,GHT^\
READY TO SCRAMBLE: Chinese pilots at the "Ready" playing "Wei Chi"
to pass the time. " Wei Chi" is a complicated form of draughts played on the
lines instead of the squares.
the cloudy sky has provided cover for
the British bombers and has blanketed
the searchlights and flak of the de
fence. It has not, however, defeated
the Pathfinders, who vary their
methods and drop whichever sort of
flare will best help the bombers in the
circumstances of each particular
night.
The defensive fighters remain the
most formidable opponents with
which the bombers have to deal, but
luckily their number is limited, and
Bomber Command has lately devel
oped great skill in misleading them.
On the night of December 29th, for
example, diversionary attacks were
made on several targets not far from
Berlin, which drew off the fighters and
left the way clear for the main force
to get over the Capital almost un
resisted. In half an hour, between
8 p.m. (B.S.T.) and 8.30 the raiders
dropped 2,000 tons of bombs, and so
thick were the great bombers in the
air over the target that some pilots
said they found difficulty in squeezing
into the queue for their bombing runs.
Reports from Sweden say that the
eastern and southern parts of the city
were chiefly devastated, and the Tem-
plehof air base was one of the points
which suffered—though not to such an
extent that aircraft were unable to
take off from it next day. It would
take an extensive '' Tedder Carpet '
to put that airfield out of action, and
probably the result would not be worth
the effort. f
The cost of that night's work to
Bomber Command was no more than
20 machines, which was a very low
proportion of the numbers despatched.
Losses have been steadily growing
smaller in recent months in proportion
to the effort, and the fighters do not
have things all their own way. During
1943 machines of Bomber Command
1
MORE DEADLY THAN THE MALE ? : Lily Litvyak, fighter pilot and junior lieutenant in the Russian Air Force, takes off on her Yak I. She has 130 sorties and seven enemy aircraft to her credit.